Isner's "The Reading Process" points out a blurred division between the reader and the writer. Because I'm recently reading the Harry Potter series for the first time, I strongly agree with Isner's idea that (in an effective text) readers immerse themselves in someone else's (the writer's) ideas and create new identities for themselves. Before beginning the series, I expected to be entertained, but not to empathize or identify with any of the characters.
The character that I've identified with the strongest throughout the first and second book is Hermione. When reading about Hermione's background, the first of her family to go to a wizarding school, I felt oddly familiar with the feeling because I'm the first of my family to go to college. I've always felt a pressure to excel academically because I've been the first to have the opportunity. When starting college, I had to become an independent "know-it-all" because I didn't have anyone else to know it all for me. When reading about Hermione's muggle parents, I pictured my own. My parents have no idea what a FASFA form is, or that Blackboard is online and not in the classroom. I also identify with her socially. It's hard for me to make friends because a lot of my peers can be laid back and just enjoy being in college. For me, it's an opportunity to learn that my parents didn't have, and I'm not taking it for granted. I saw a lot of my own emotion in Hermione, which helped me to adopt Hogwarts and other fantastical elements almost seamlessly.
The interesting thing about my experience with Harry Potter is that many of the parts of the story I assume to be true (i.e. Hermione must feel the same as I do) have no solid textual evidence. It's something that I've seen in between the lines, and I'm sure other readers have filled in the blanks differently. For example, in class someone mentioned Ron being the glue that holds his group together. I'm not so sure I agree, but I think it would be difficult to provide evidence either way. I haven't seen the films either, however, so that could be giving me a different impression all together.
It's been difficult to find a character that I don't empathize with in books one and two. I consider myself a highly empathetic person, and I think Rowling is extremely deft at making characters so well-rounded that its hard to label them as "good" or "evil". As strange as it seems, I've developed my own back stories for almost all the characters, including Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Lucius, etc. This may be a benefit of coming to the Harry Potter series as an adult. I really enjoy the complexities of the characters, and "psychoanalyzing" them if you will. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between what I've read and what I've created myself which is exactly what I think Isner is arguing.
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